It's pretty excellent at tutoring a creature -- but it's not (immediately) like griselbrand in that it dumps a ton of cards into your hand at a moment's notice. To do that, you need the right board presence first.

I feel that if Cradle of Gaia can be fine, then this can too (as they both require a significant board presence to be bonkers.)

Not really sure about this guy tbh. In an ideal situation, he's absolutely sick fixed variant of Griselbrand- but 8 mana and a sacrifice cost might not be the right combination for most decks looking for a way to tutor a combo-piece, or hand sculpt for high impact future plays.

Rather, if your deck needs a fatty and a sac outlet, this guy is an excellent piece of overlap- but I think that's more of a niche criteria given the general efficiency of sac outlets to begin with. With that in mind, I don't see him replacing Rune-Scarred Demon in all that many decks, but it is a fine topend for both demon tribal and decks that need that fatty/sac outlet for value overlap.

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niheloim wrote:

Wall of Chat. 2UCreature- Wall

DefenderWall of chat exceeds at using a lot of words to mischaracterize opposing view points.

This wins the moment it hits the field... guess I need more blue decks.

If Tooth And Nail is a problem in your playgroup, this will probably make it so that mono-black or blue-black decks can start doing Toothy-Naily things *. But I feel pretty confident it is not stronger than T&N and will not replace it as the single-card-win-button of choice, and in the cases where it becomes one of the creatures plopped out by T&N (maybe alongside Abhorrent Overlord or Avenger of Zendikar - also, this works far better with Defense of the Heart or another way of having all your mana at your immediate disposal *), I think it's actually a softer combo than several of the most common T&N combos.

The sky is probably not falling. Or maybe it is, but let's give it some time to actually fall before we start complaining, please.

If you're in monoblack, and you set up a Living End by actually suspending it (does anyone even do that? haha), with just Abhorrent Overlord in your 'yard, then the end step before your turn when the last time counter would be removed you Entomb this guy into your 'yard, that's about the most "well, we couldn't do that before" thing I can think of for this card. I'd love to see better examples.

This wins the moment it hits the field... guess I need more blue decks.

If Tooth And Nail is a problem in your playgroup, this will probably make it so that mono-black or blue-black decks can start doing Toothy-Naily things *. But I feel pretty confident it is not stronger than T&N and will not replace it as the single-card-win-button of choice, and in the cases where it becomes one of the creatures plopped out by T&N (maybe alongside Abhorrent Overlord or Avenger of Zendikar - also, this works far better with Defense of the Heart or another way of having all your mana at your immediate disposal *), I think it's actually a softer combo than several of the most common T&N combos.

The sky is probably not falling. Or maybe it is, but let's give it some time to actually fall before we start complaining, please.

Tutoring the exact card(s) you need at instant speed for an irrelevant cost seems pretty good. Combo or not, this card sticking is game over or you're doing it wrong.

Tutoring the exact card(s) you need at instant speed for an irrelevant cost seems pretty good. Combo or not, this card sticking is game over or you're doing it wrong.

Is it an irrelevant cost? The life loss is irrelevant, sure, but the fact that it can't sacrifice itself means you always need another card to empower this card's ability. It's never truly a single-card game-ender. I will agree with you that it will sometimes end games, and having another creature is a relatively easy requirement to meet, especially in a format where you almost always have access to your commander. But I don't believe every time it drops you will have 3 other chump creatures immediately ready to sacrifice.

Even if you did always have 3 other chumps every time you cast it, would it be that much more effective than simply casting Diabolic Revelation for 3? Casting Revelation, you get to keep your chumps for blocking and your life total stays the same. Casting Razaketh, the advantage is that you don't need to tutor that turn, you can sacrifice one creature, then wait to figure out what you will tutor with the other two as your opponents change in reaction to your board presence. The other advantages of Razaketh are that it can attack for 8 and you don't need to cast it, you can cheat it into play with Elvish Piper or Animate Dead effects. I'm not trying to argue that Revelation is as strong as Razaketh, I think being able to cheat Razaketh into play gives it a huge advantage. But Epsilon and others seem to think that simply being able to tutor for several cards means you have won the game, and I disagree. I think that there are cutthroat combo decks out there where that is the case, but they already have enough toys, and Razaketh may not even fit into them because it requires that you sacrifice another creature.

I feel fairly certain Razaketh will not go into every black deck. I think in most decks that choose to play Razaketh, it will likely just be a strong creature that enables powerful late game plays, and in a few decks it will power out combos or be one of the main cogs in a combo or control engine. But again, maybe I'm wrong and the sky is really falling. We will see.

Tutoring the exact card(s) you need at instant speed for an irrelevant cost seems pretty good. Combo or not, this card sticking is game over or you're doing it wrong.

Is it an irrelevant cost? The life loss is irrelevant, sure, but the fact that it can't sacrifice itself means you always need another card to empower this card's ability. It's never truly a single-card game-ender. I will agree with you that it will sometimes end games, and having another creature is a relatively easy requirement to meet, especially in a format where you almost always have access to your commander. But I don't believe every time it drops you will have 3 other chump creatures immediately ready to sacrifice.

Even if you did always have 3 other chumps every time you cast it, would it be that much more effective than simply casting Diabolic Revelation for 3? Casting Revelation, you get to keep your chumps for blocking and your life total stays the same. Casting Razaketh, the advantage is that you don't need to tutor that turn, you can sacrifice one creature, then wait to figure out what you will tutor with the other two as your opponents change in reaction to your board presence. The other advantages of Razaketh are that it can attack for 8 and you don't need to cast it, you can cheat it into play with Elvish Piper or Animate Dead effects. I'm not trying to argue that Revelation is as strong as Razaketh, I think being able to cheat Razaketh into play gives it a huge advantage. But Epsilon and others seem to think that simply being able to tutor for several cards means you have won the game, and I disagree. I think that there are cutthroat combo decks out there where that is the case, but they already have enough toys, and Razaketh may not even fit into them because it requires that you sacrifice another creature.

I feel fairly certain Razaketh will not go into every black deck. I think in most decks that choose to play Razaketh, it will likely just be a strong creature that enables powerful late game plays, and in a few decks it will power out combos or be one of the main cogs in a combo or control engine. But again, maybe I'm wrong and the sky is really falling. We will see.

This is a card that has the potential to destroy casual metas. I see a lot of the usual big stompy green decks winning the game off of playing Greater Good on a half decent board state. Raz is in the color that most easily cheats out dudes and is essentially the unholy love child of GG and Survival. If your deck has any sort of sacrifice synergy, like Pawn of Ulamog, Sifter of Skulls, Dark Mike or Smothering Abomination cheating out raz by like turn 5 or so can turn a synergistic slightly above average board into an instant win or at least a near untouchable position of power.

Do I think it should be banned? yeah probably not that anyone will agree, even if it requires a board state to really abuse. It's basically Craterhoof Behemoth, depending on board state, in enters and as a result you probably run over the table. Regardless of it's combo potential, it's going to be an absolutely miserable card to be on the other side of any time it resolves and we really don't need more cards like that.

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Maluko wrote:

We need a clear set of objective rules so that everybody always knows what to expect, and how to prepare for it. As of now, I think I spend more time arguing with players about the format than I do playing fun and interactive games of Commander. And last time I read, this was not the format's purpose.

The primary issue here, is that metas that casual tend to not include anything as involved as mass sacrifice strategies, reanimator etc. What does he do there? If the pilot is building a coherent deck for a format built around incoherent decks then it's to them to either convince the rest of the playgroup to get up to speed, or find a way not to make their deck as strong (but for that matter, goodstuff has just never been a functional way of playing EDH- there are too many pieces, and too much involved in the singleton restriction for there to be a benefit to goodstuff decks.)

Also, what do you consider a "casual" playgroup? That kind of metric makes a rather large number of cards "ruin casual playgroups" from every set in Magic's past. Even in casual groups, I've found that the group just enjoys playing cards with teeth.

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niheloim wrote:

Wall of Chat. 2UCreature- Wall

DefenderWall of chat exceeds at using a lot of words to mischaracterize opposing view points.

Am I the only one who thinks it looks like a 'win more' kind of card? It looks like it can absolutely will win the game IF the person using it either has a favorable board state or managed to set up to take advantage of it's reusable tutoring. It also looks like it's a big 'hit me' sign if whoever's using it is behind for any reason, because a reusable tutor does 'look' powerful. And it's a creature, so there are a lot of ways of getting rid of it. Being able to tutor out multiple cards is powerful, but the sac requirement pretty much kills the idea of it being unconditionally useful in my eyes.